


Nine Things About Being Brought Back From The Dead

by intimacycaricature



Category: Waterparks (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Halloween, Inspired By Tumblr, Necromancy, Spooky, character death is extremely temporary lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-30 06:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20809838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intimacycaricature/pseuds/intimacycaricature
Summary: Awsten is dead, and then he is not. Coming back is a process.





	Nine Things About Being Brought Back From The Dead

**Author's Note:**

> happy almost-halloween!! i have no idea where this came from but i wanted to do something kinda spooky for the best time of the year :). i experimented a little with this style of writing, so i guess you guys can tell me if it worked or not lol
> 
> this fic is kind of a weird one. it's supposed to be, but like… it's weird. i don't know. you've been warned. read on
> 
> inspired by this tumblr post: https://hgk477.tumblr.com/post/186538355044/nine-things-about-being-brought-back-from-the-dead

**1\. You will be cold.**

The cold is the first thing that returns to Awsten. Before sight and sound and sensation, before awareness, before life, there is cold. At the beginning, that is all there is. Overwhelming, engulfing cold.

**2\. You will wake up screaming. They all do.**

He apparently scares the shit out of everyone in the room (save Elijah, who of course knew it was coming). He doesn't know what causes it, but the second thing to present itself to him after the cold is _dread_. Dark, heavy, consuming his entire being.

He sits bolt upright in bed and can't for the life of him comprehend why his throat hurts so damn bad until his hearing returns and oh, he's screaming his fucking head off.

“Awsten, Awsten, hey!” Someone is throwing their arms around his thrashing body, more pinning him down than hugging him. He hasn't stopped yelling long enough to check, but he thinks it's Jawn. “It's fine, it's okay. You're— you're okay, you're _alive_—”

“What did you do to me?!” Awsten hears himself shriek. He doesn't remember wanting to say that. “What did you _do?!_”

Jawn continues to hold him down in silence. Awsten stops screaming eventually, but that feeling of _bad bad bad_ never leaves him entirely.

**3\. Your entire body will throb, the pain will eventually subside; being brought back is never a painless task.**

An hour after he awakens, it still _hurts_. He feels like he's been hit by a truck. It lessens by the tiniest fraction every minute, but it's not fast enough. They offer him painkillers, but they don't make a dent. He supposes he knows why.

His soul had gotten quite used to being without a body. It doesn't much appreciate being tethered to one again.

They take turns staying with him until the pain fades. Elijah says it will eventually. Right now, Otto's pressed against his side, allowing Awsten to hold his hand in his death grip (ha, get it?) (Otto doesn't think it's very funny). Somehow, Awsten knows that Otto is and always will be more alive than he is.

**4\. Do not get up immediately, you will be nauseous and your body will need time to readjust to this realm.**

Awsten is always acutely aware of how _heavy_ he is. He doesn't remember anything of being dead, but he thinks that wherever he was, he must have been weightless. It was nice. Sometimes when he wakes up from sleeping, he feels an intense longing for that place he does not remember. That place where he used to be.

His entire body weighs on his frame now. The first time he tries to stand, he falls so fast he nearly brains himself on the bedside table, and Geoff, his assigned watchdog for the hour, is at his side in an instant.

Geoff is saying something about how he shouldn't exert himself like that, he's not ready yet, but Awsten isn't really listening. The wave of nausea comes on so fast.

“Get the trash can get the trash can get _something_—”

Geoff barely has time to slide the wastebasket between Awsten's knees before the younger man retches. Thick, inky black sludge falls into the wastebasket, much to Geoff's apparent horror. It tastes like death. Awsten would know.

“Oh, _fuck_…” Geoff leans away and covers his mouth, and Awsten feels him jump to his feet next to him. “Elijah! _Elijah!_ Something's wrong!”

Later, Elijah will say it's normal. Just a side effect. Awsten will not believe him.

**5\. Ask for more blankets, you will feel very cold.**

The cold lingers.

He thought it would fade, but after hours, after days, he still finds himself asking for more blankets almost every waking hour. He shivers even underneath mounds and mounds of fabric, even though the thermostat is all the way up on a relatively warm spring day.

“Another one,” he says quietly to Otto. “Please. It's so cold.”

“It's sweltering in here, Awsten,” Otto explains. Awsten can hear the sympathy in his voice, but sympathy doesn't make him warmer. “And I think Elijah gave you the last blanket an hour ago.”

Awsten outright whines at that statement, but complains no further. A part of him knows that no amount of blankets will truly warm him. The cold is not surface level. It's deeper than that, coming not from the outside but from the inside, chilling his very core. It is not the world around him that is cold. It is Awsten himself, his own soul, that is cold.

The cold lingers.

**6\. You will not remember how you died, do not ask.**

Awsten thinks he remembers, sometimes, what happened to him. He knows it was something bad. People don't often drop dead at twenty-seven of natural causes. He only remembers pieces, though, things that might perhaps be memories if he thinks long and hard about them.

“Geoff,” he says one day. “How did I—”

Geoff shushes him before he can continue. “Don't worry about it. You're back now.”

“But—”

“No, Awsten.” Geoff gives him an unreadable looks. Could be pain. Could be pity. Could be something else entirely. “We're not supposed to tell you. Does it matter?”

“I just want to know,” Awsten says quietly.

“You shouldn't.”

**7\. Do not ask the practitioner how they performed the ritual, this is considered bad luck and you will not last long.**

Awsten's not very good at the whole being-brought-back thing. But one thing he is sure of, for whatever reason, is that he should not ask how he came to be back on this earth. He's still curious as to how he left. But the knowledge of how he returned will stay with Elijah and only with Elijah.

He recalls part of it. He had to be taught how to breathe and eat and drink again. That first sleep, there on the forest floor, was the first time he'd closed his eyes in a long time. The dead do not sleep.

He hadn't known who Elijah was at first, hell, he didn't even know who he himself was. But when he awoke after that first sleep, he remembered everything. Everything except his death, and that place he went afterwards. And he knew, even then, that some things were best left unknown.

That's not to say he doesn't get overwhelmingly curious. He does, just once.

“Elijah?”

“Yeah?”

Nothing happens, Elijah doesn't even take his eyes off the TV, but suddenly Awsten's struck with that awful sensation of dread once again. He chokes on the words coming up from his throat and ultimately swallows them down. Something compels him. He's not meant to know.

“Never mind.”

**8\. Your loved ones will be ecstatic to have you back, consider this a blessing.**

They all cling to him now, much more than they did before. Awsten understands. He's been too afraid to ask, but he knows he's been gone awhile. He can tell just by the little things. He knows he died in autumn, but it's spring now. Geoff's hair is longer. Elijah's got a tattoo Awsten doesn't recognize. He knows that time has passed.

He's afraid to ask if it's been 6 months or 6 years.

Jawn especially won't let him out of his sight if he can help it. Out of all of them, he spends the most time with him by far. Awsten… Awsten wishes he could understand. For him, it feels like just a few days ago that he last saw everyone. Everyone else had to mourn him.

He overhears Geoff and Jawn talking one day, just outside the guest bedroom where he stays.

“I thought you had a shoot today…?”

“I cancelled,” Jawn murmurs, so quiet Awsten can barely hear him. “I had to see him.”

“Jawn, you can't keep doing this.” Geoff's voice drops into that weird disappointed dad tone. “He has his life back now, that doesn't mean you have to give up yours.”

“I can't leave him,” Jawn whispers. “Don't you get that? If I come back one day and he's gone… I can't do that again. I can't.”

It sinks in for Awsten then, how different things are now. He wonders if it will always be this way.

**9\. Thank the practitioner and let them be on their way, if they do not look you in the eye consider this a bad omen.**

It takes time, but eventually Awsten is strong enough to leave Elijah's. They all plan on piling themselves into Geoff's car, even though Awsten insists he's okay to drive home. He knows, though; they just care.

“Elijah,” he says on his way out the door, behind everyone else. “I wanted to say thanks for everything. Especially, y'know… bringing me back.”

“Of course, dude. Always.” Elijah stares down at his feet and scratches at the back of his neck, unusually humble. “We missed you.”

Awsten has to smile at that. “I missed you guys too. I think. I don't really remember, honestly. I'll… see you when I get my life back together, yeah?”

“Hell yeah,” Elijah says. “See you.”

It's not until they've all clambered into Geoff's car and are halfway back to Awsten's apartment when he realizes. Elijah never made eye contact with him, not once. Awsten wouldn't normally take notice, but something's tugging at him in the back of his mind. Elijah didn't look him in the eye.

Strange.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading. happy halloween!
> 
> tumblr/twitter: @peachluhbotomy


End file.
